GO, BUFFS, GO! RACING IS A LAST REFUGE OF THE WATER BUFFALO IN NEWLY INDUSTRIALIZED THAILAND

Yothin Attano hit the mud hard. It was his third race of the dayand the third time he had been thrown. Bruised, bleeding andfrustrated, he could only watch as his 3-year-old water buffalo,Rung, dashed riderless toward the finish line. "Damn beast," hemuttered as the sweat spilled down his mud-spattered face. Forthe 25-year-old rice farmer it looked like another hard-luckyear at Chonburi, Thailand, home of the world's only waterbuffalo racing championships--and beauty contest.

It may not surprise you to learn that the water buffalo, theworkhorse of farms all across Asia, is not a natural racinganimal. Most water buffalo would rather spend their days rollingin mud puddles than running breakneck down a mud track. But onthis October day, 159 buffalo from 50 farms tested their speedbefore 5,000 Thai and foreign spectators who stood through fourhours of heats in the steamy downpours of the Southeast Asianmonsoon.

The races are the culmination of a daylong buffalo celebrationorganized every year by the Chonburi city fathers and Thailand'sreported top crime boss, Somchai Khunpluem. He didn't show thisrainy race day. Instead, he sent his son, Withaya Khunpluem, whois Thailand's deputy minister of industry. After Withaya helpedselect the winners of the buffalo beauty contest, it was off tothe races.

"These races are one way to help preserve the water buffalo,"said Chaiyat Huangsri, the day's master of ceremonies. "They'rethe backbone of the nation and have been very important to ourway of life." That may have been true 20 years ago, whenChonburi, 44 miles southeast of Bangkok, was still a sleepyseaside farming community. Today, however, Chonburi is agovernment-sponsored showcase of industrial estates and assemblyplants designed to reel in fast-buck foreign investment.Farmland is disappearing. The traditional life of tilling thesoil is giving way to the numbing shifts of the assembly line.In this new economic environment, there is little room for thebuffalo. Even Attano uses machinery to reap a living from hismodest 25-acre rice farm. He keeps Rung and his other waterbuffalo, Nual, purely for racing.

It's not hard to make a water buffalo run, Attano says. Just putall his friends where you want him to go, and he'll head rightfor them. But at the crack of the starter's gun at Chonburi onlya few buffalo broke straight for the finish line. Many woveabout, seemingly confused, while others refused to move at all.

Though water buffalo racing evokes images of sumo wrestlersdoing the hundred-yard dash, the animals are surprisingly swiftfor creatures that weigh nearly a ton. Most covered the120-meter, rain-soaked track in about 12 seconds. But for thejockeys it was no joyride. Wearing shorts and armed with just abamboo riding crop, each rough-riding rice farmer hung on to hisbeast by means of a rope. The good jockeys got as far back onthe buffalo's rumps as possible to avoid the violent bucking.

"It's not quite the rodeo, but it's damn exciting," said BetsyFontenot, of Beaumont, Texas, watching from the stands andsporting a cowboy hat adorned with ostrich feathers. Many riderswere thrown, landing hard in the middle of the stampeding pack.Fast reflexes saved a few from serious injury, if not certaindeath, as they dodged the hooves of laggard buffalo.

When the mud settled and the heats were done, the winner was the1,870-pound favorite, Korn. It was his fourth championship ineight years. "I bought him for $880," said his owner, WaPaopouchong, a 41-year-old sugarcane plantation lord who alsohad five other buffalo running that day. "I've been offered$3,000, but I'll never sell him."

Against such competition it's unlikely that Nual or Rung willever emerge as the Secretariat of the buffalo-racing world andcapture the $200 winner's purse for his owner. And Attano sayshe doesn't really need the eight dollars he makes just forshowing up. Nonetheless, he vows he'll be back next year. "I'm aChonburi man," Attano says, "and this is what Chonburi men do."

For the past two years Robert Horn has lived in Bangkok, wherehe writes for the Associated Press.

COLOR PHOTO: RICHARD VOGEL/AP At the Chonburi races, some rough-riding rice farmers went to the switch; others hung on for dear life. [People riding water buffaloes in race]